Voice of the child in pre-proceedings work

Work done with the Local Authority and parents before the case ever gets to Court (and ideally with the view of the case never needing to come to Court) has been important for a few years now, and will become even more important when the new PLO comes in, and there’s even more emphasis on what happened before the case got into the Court-room.

There have been many people saying for a number of years, that not having a Guardian, representing the child’s interests and being either the check-and-balance to a Local Authority who may be being zealous or oppressive OR an independent person who is able to impartially communicate to the parents that they are in a perilous situation if improvements are not made, is a major flaw in the pre-proceedings system.

It is for that reason that a pilot was set up in Coventy and Warwickshire, to have a Guardian involved in pre-proceedings meetings between the social worker and the parents.

{There was a third pilot area, Liverpool, and there will be a report on that in due course}

The positive aspects of the pilot was that the diversion rate of pre-proceedings cases where a Guardian was involved was fifty per cent(by diversion rate, they mean, cases that ended up with the problems being sufficiently resolved by the parents that the case did not have to go to Court).That’s a decent figure, comparing favourably to the existing Masson studies of pre-proceedings work generally diverting about 25% of cases, and the other cases in the samples in those Local Authorities where Guardians were not involved.

Of the cases that do go to Court, are they dealt with any faster? Well, the sample sizes are frankly very small to draw conclusions from – one or two “long runners” could skew the figures very badly, but they do claim that the Pre proceedings cases where there WAS a Guardian (CAFCASS Plus) finished more quickly than the ones where there was not

The overall average (mean) duration of the care proceedings for the Cafcass PLUS cases (excluding the complex cases) is 36.3 weeks (based on 11 cases). The duration of the comparator cases is 42.6 weeks (18 cases). There is a distinct differencebetween the Warwickshire Cafcass PLUS and comparator cases in respect of careproceedings duration. There are fewer longer running cases (more than 40 weeks) in the Cafcass PLUS sample as a whole.

I really think the sample size is far too small to get excited about that. And actually, is the over-arching aim of having a voice for the child in pre-proceedings work speed of resolution, as opposed to fairness and getting the work done right?

The positive diversion rates, the pilot considers largely due to two things – (1) galvanising extended family members to assist the parents, and this seems to me to be a very laudable aim and (2) parents engaging in reparative work.

It would have been interesting to know whether the involvement of a Guardian either increased the reach out to family members OR somehow made it more likely that the family members ‘stepped up to the plate’. And also whether the reparative work was either better focussed, or the parents more committed to making use of it.That would be something I would hope is focussed on more, if the pilot is enhanced in numbers.

This bit is interesting

However, the pilot also provides clear evidence that where cases progressed to court on an unplanned basis and local authority work is

incomplete, then the FCA was not able overturn deficiencies in pre-­proceedings practice.

[i.e, where the pre-proceedings work hasn’t been done very well, having a Guardian on board didn’t fix that. That seems to me rather disappointing, that’s clearly what one would hope that a Guardian would be doing during this pre-proceedings work, making sure that the LA did the work properly and covered all of the bases, with the benefit of that fresh pair of eyes and an independent pair of eyes.]

The pilot report raises some very good questions about systemic causes of delay, two of the four of which rest on the shoulders of the Courts rather than other professionals

Systemic factors include:

1. the enduring problem of variability in the quality of social work

assessment but equally failure of courts to recognise good social work

practice which creates something of a ‘chicken and an egg’ situation;

2. that a number of cases appear to enter the pre-proceedings process too late, such that the window for further assessment and attempt to effect change is missed and cases then progress to court on an

unplanned/emergency basis;

3. the difficulty of making effective decisions about, and providing effective support to parents with fluctuating mental capacity who are not deemed to warrant the services of the Official Solicitor;

4. difficulties in timetabling contested final hearings due to insufficient court sitting time and problems of co-ordinating the diaries of very busy

professionals.

The Official Solicitor issue is a perennial one, and becoming even more important as we have a hard cap of 26 weeks – if you can’t fairly work with parents or ask them to make decisions/agree assessments/sign written agreements because they don’t have capacity to do so, and you can’t get the Official Solicitor representing them until you are in proceedings, it will mean that all parents who lack capacity will have less time to turn their problems round than ones who do have capacity. That seems to me to be a decent Disability Discrimination case to run at some point.

The pilot report echoes many of the issues already raised in the Masson report about pre-proceedings work, chiefly the overwhelming feeling of professionals involved that the Court didn’t really pay any attention to it and that Courts simply routinely commission fresh assessments with the view that any parenting or risk assessment only counts if it takes place within Court proceedings.

Independence is an important issue – there’s an obvious risk that a Guardian who participates in pre-proceedings work that culminates in care proceedings being issued might be felt by the parents to have come to the care proceedings with a view of the case already formed(rather than being completely fresh and impartial at the time that proceedings are issued)

The FCA’s Independence: was it in question?

The question of whether pre-proceedings involvement of the FCA compromised the FCA’s independence was raised by a range of stakeholders encountered during the course of this project. A review of parents’ statements did not reveal any concerns about this from their representatives in the Cafcass PLUS sample. The FCAs themselves stated that they did not feel their independence was compromised by

earlier involvement, they felt able to assert an independent perspective regardless of when they became involved in a case. Of course, in a small number of cases, because the FCA who was involved in pre-­proceedings had left the service, in actual fact the

case was then allocated to another FCA as described above.

[If you’ll forgive me, I’ll continue to use the word “guardian” rather than Family Court Advisor or FCA, I just don’t like it… I still miss “Guardian ad Litem” to be frank]

The report overall is positive about the benefits to be achieved by involving Guardians in pre-proceedings work.I am afraid that given the costs and resources that rolling it out nationally would require, the pilot study would have needed to be much more glowing and triumphant.And that in particular, it would have needed to show that Guardian involvement pre-proceedings had a real bearing on the success of cases being concluded within 26 weeks.

I think in the current climate and the agendas that are being pursued, I don’t see this pilot being positive enough to be rolled out. But it is still an interesting report and the issues that it touches on of just how hard hitting those 26 week targets will be until there is genuine systemic change are important ones.

[Voting link for Suesspicious Minds in the Family Law awards – you can vote for me – or any of the other candidates, who incidentally are not offering to save your life at some unspecified point in the future, here

5 responses

Again and again Guardians and L.A solicitors tell family courts that children do not want to return home and even that they do not wish to see their parents.They explain to the parents that it would be too traumatic for those children to come to court or give evidence by video.
It then transpires that indignant children have been begging to return home and to come to court to say so but were refused.When this happens noone is ever held accountable .

A further point is that parents are frequently not told the truth about health and behaviour of children in foster care; this is deliberately concealed. This is particularly important where child’s health problem has been attributed to poor parental care, but persists in foster care.
Children soon learn that if they say the “wrong” thing in supervised contact with parents, future contacts will be curtailed or stopped. So do parents. It is, above all, the deceptive practices which have been allowed, and even encouraged, which have led to public lack of confidence in child “protection” in the UK.
Jean Robinson, President, AIMS

I think it is safe to say, based on evidence that has come to light through the media over the last ten months, that state child protection in the UK is not protecting children from harm. I know that parents have seen their children at supervised contact with unexplained injuries that never comes to light. The injuries witnessed by parents is much worse than what the children were taken for, from their parents in the first place.
Jimmy Savile, children’s homes, ministers, social workers, muslim gangs, school teachers and police officers all involved in covering up child sex abuse, but are paid to protect them.
Thank god there is a public lack of confidence in child “protection” in the UK, as this is the only reason the State will have to sort the problem out.
Just because a child is taken into care, does not mean it is then suddenly cared for. In many cases it is the opposite.

I think perhaps the worst thing in the care system is the way children in the 8-15 age group are treated when they are taken into “care” .Their mobile phones are confiscated and when applicable so are their laptops.They are isolated from their friends,parents,grandparents and even sometimes their siblings.No communication of any kind is permitted and when parents are finally allowed to visit in cold impersonal contact centres all conversation is strictly censored so that no mention can be made of the court case,why they are here and what chances they have of returning home.No complaint by children of sexual or physical abuse by foster families or social workers is allowed.No weeping and no excessive affection can be shown .Any breach of these and countless other rules in the “contact agreement” parents are obliged to sign, and contact will be stopped at once and sometimes for good .These children are treated worse than murderers and rapists in prison because those criminals at least are allowed to make phone calls and can discuss what they like with visitors whilst children who have done nothing wrong can do neither ! No wonder these unfortunate children wonder if they are evil or if they have done something terribly wicked.Only the cold and utterly heartless would inflict such cruel indignities on innocent children.